Comments by shibboleth

Thomas Jefferson was a almost certainly a Deist and if he'd been working on HIS OWN document I'll wager it would have read differently. However, the document in question was THE PEOPLES document and an overwhelming majority of those people were Theists or outright Christians. Being the wise and expansive man that he was (a free-thinker) Mr. Jefferson framed the document in the language most appropriate to the situation.

As for The Jefferson Bible, it was clearly a work of scholarship as opposed to a work of faith or devotion. Just as a man doesn't have to be English to study Shakespeare (or even a man!) neither does a man have to be a Christian or a Jew to study the Bible. Indeed, I admire the Bible on many different levels: as literature, as mythology, as a spiritual primer, as poetry and even as an historical document and a working manual on warfare and tactics...but I'm a deist in the same sense that Jefferson was, that is, to my understanding of the man. What was Jefferson? A Deist in private, a man of (faith) the people in public...no contradiction.

One more thing to consider: In Jefferson's day Atheists or non-believers in any form were viewed with a considerable amount of animosity and would have been lumped together with other unsavory characters such as witches, devil-worshippers and other pagans who, all too often, ended up being on the wrong end of a rope or used for firewood. To maintain at least the appearance of religiosity would have been a wise choice for a man in his position, maybe the ONLY choice...

A more likely scenario, Spacey, if you don't mind me taking the ball and running with it, is this one: The "Powers That Be", that is, the powers that control the Pentagon and the Defense Department, create and deploy military robots (like the already-existing, Bigdog, the worlds most advanced quadruped robot, built with the funding and support of DARPA.) to subdue and control the masses. A one-world government emerges from the carnage, ruled by the "Machine-Masters" and dedicated to the enslavement of the entire human-race. The Earth groans beneath the fully-articulated, mechanical feet of our conquerers, the sky grows dark with their carbon-fiber, razor-edged wings. Finally, even the "masters" succumb to the relentless machines and the surface of the planet is scorched, purified, mankind is exterminated. With Earth free of life the Warbots, compelled to continue pursuing their "prime directive", leave this planet in search of other biological life to extinguish. Earth is remembered thereafter and throughout the then-populated cosmos as the Demon Planet, the place where the "machine plague" originated. Within a relatively short time though, a million years at best, even the memory of Earth dies as the last biological being in the universe is crushed beneath the treads of a Warbot and the space between the planets grows deathly still: All flesh is perished...thanks a lot People of Earth, jerks.

If someone beats me up and I track him down and bash him in the head with a rock (as you imply happened) it is NOT self-defense, indeed, it is illegal and, for those concerned with such things, it is immoral as well. So don't worry about bursting my bubble, Hank, you're not as sharp as you think.

All the cheap talk and nothing to support dogsnsands initial claim (or implied claim) that the homeless regularly assault people, a claim which carries weight in dogsnsands pathetic world but dissipates quickly in a world of fact. A casual glance at the statistics will reveal that the opposite is true, in fact it's not uncommon to hear of homeless individuals being beaten to death by police-officers or started on fire by any bored weirdo or gangbanger that happens along the street. No, nothing approaching the truth, just a bunch of amateur forensic scientists excusing the behavior of a man who tried to bash someone's head in with a rock. I wonder what the reaction would have been if the victim had been Moslem...or black...or gay.

I like dogs. In fact I'd be willing to bet that I'd enjoy a meal at the local dog-pound much more than I'd enjoy one in the company of the above, featured letter-writer who would probably flinch and sneer every-time I chewed too loudly or laughed too vigorously. Besides, chances are the author of the letter-in-question drives a car, consumes enough food to feed a third-world country and thinks it's okay that America bombs little, brown people as long as it insures that he/she can live a life of privilege, all things which I abhor and none of which a dog would do. Let me eat and sleep with dogs but god save me from the hypocrite.